


The Painting That Never Happened

by ninamazing



Category: Legend of the Seeker
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-12
Updated: 2009-05-12
Packaged: 2017-10-19 05:52:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/197648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninamazing/pseuds/ninamazing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>It makes sense that it would happen with grass under their bodies and a cloudless sky above; Richard is a child of nature, and Kahlan revels in the sunlight that washes them clean of their burdens.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Painting That Never Happened

**Author's Note:**

> Look, they basically wrote this FOR me in 1x20 "Sanctuary," okay. I think we can all agree on that.

The brushstrokes make it happen. It is only a dream, a half-conceived world that fits into a fluttering piece of canvas — yet she grasps for it like a drowning woman, like a ten-year-old girl in love instead of a Mother Confessor who is, by all accounts, supposed to know better.

In the painting that never happened Richard gazes up at her with those lonely dark eyes, and she can grab him by the scruff of his collar and pull his body close against hers. He doesn't resist, doesn't resist at all; he falls into her grip and opens his mouth against hers before she manages to take her next breath. Here without magic he is not the Seeker, not the hero she must serve — he is the simple boy she found across the boundary, who surprised her the first time he summoned a steely glint to his eyes and set off to slay D'Harans, who has surprised her more and more since with the way his easy smile burns across her field of vision.

She is not supposed to find men so fascinating. She learned long ago that there are two types of people, Confessors and others, and the others are at her mercy whether they are Confessed or not. They are less powerful. They must be protected. They, by nature, cannot be equals.

In the painting that never happened Kahlan has her first moment of freedom, realizing all of what is gone; it's like lightning in her blood. Richard grips her arms and now, just this time, she does not have to fight to ignore the way the _hard-sweat-forest_ smell of him curls around her like a curtain. She does not have to back away, her legs shaking in a threat to disobey her, before he cups one hand at the base of her neck and wraps the other around her waist to press her close. She can give in slowly, with effort, to the hot comfort of his palm in the hollow of her spine, to the sweet twist of his tongue in her mouth, to the rasp of his hair in her hands. She has always feared that the taste of this experience would be so delicious.

Richard huffs against her cheek, catching his breath. He moves his hands to reach for hers, holding the fingers. He meets her gaze and does not seem afraid.

"Are you sure?" she asks, and raises their joined hands to touch his cheek.

"I've always been sure," he tells her. "The idea of pleasing you, Kahlan, has never been something that scares me."

His voice travels in a shiver across the surface of her skin. In the world she'd have to stop him, have to shut her mind away from that kind of talk, but in the painting that never happened Kahlan just takes his head and kisses him soundly. She guides him down and he licks a long-awaited line through her cleavage, carves out territory above and around and inside her corset. He follows her hands where they lead, and eagerly.

It makes sense that it would happen with grass under their bodies and a cloudless sky above; Richard is a child of nature, and Kahlan revels in the sunlight that washes them clean of their burdens. When she straddles him his hands splay open over her thighs, and he grins up at her like morning.

She tugs the shirt off his chest, and he starts on her many laces. Kahlan traces distracting patterns over his collarbones, across his muscles, down to his waist, and Richard bucks his hips against her as her dress falls. She shifts to peel it off and slip out of her boots, and does not miss the way his eyes trace her movements. The corset springs off and she can breathe; she gulps down lungfuls of illusional air and all of this seems brighter. Next to her, Richard has shed his clothes in time to catch her as she's naked, and the earth welcomes her body when he lowers her and drops his head to her neck.

Richard's hands are warm and firm at her sides, holding her gently as he paints his mouth across her skin. He kisses her breasts, licks her sweat like he's trying to drink her. Kahlan can smell the valley in the air, pollen and straw and summer all at once. And Richard. Her lover's leather-burned, light scent of mud and man is blending with her own, and she wishes for infinite lungs to breathe it all in, and never stop.

She turns in his arms and topples him, pushing him back into the grass. His shoulder ripples as he twists to toss away a fallen tree branch, and then he's grinning up at her, his hands on her neck, and she's leaning down to kiss him. Their hips notch. The tight heat of his skin aches like a dream; the press of his hardness keeps her in reality, in the painting that never happened.

His groan is strangled when she rises above him and eases back down. Richard reaches helplessly for her hands as he slides inside of her. They both breathe out; together, it sounds like one more lonely sigh from the crush of wind through the trees.

Her Seeker closes his eyes briefly, and bites his lip, like it's too much. Kahlan brings one set of Richard's fingers to her mouth and kisses, kisses, until he gazes up at her and she thinks, _this is how it must feel, to be Confessed_. His other hand opens and drifts across her belly; his fingers trace the skin at the spread of her legs and draw her, gently, out. Richard is kind and knowing and the pad of his thumb is strong, sweet, finding her hidden place. When Kahlan throws her head back the sun brushes her eyes gold and she's falling, blinded —  
      focused on one feeling only —  
      _this is what she's been missing —_  
in the painting that never happened Kahlan cries out, moved and still, on top of him. Richard steadies her hips and she smiles, and his face collapses through his open mouth as she thrusts her hips against him and grips his body hard.

Richard is breathing like a long day's gallop in the forest as she settles herself against his chest. Because she can, because here her powers and Darken Rahl and ugly truths don't exist, she kisses the soft spot underneath his jaw. He holds her close, and they lie in shifting afternoon shadow until the beating of their hearts is calm.

"I wish we were a painting," says Richard.

Kahlan lips the lobe of his ear. She inhales deeply.

"Yes," she agrees.


End file.
